CHAPTER 119: CHAPTER 119: FIRST CHALLENGE (2)

Ved tried even harder to fly up but the more he tried the more stamina he drained. Eventually he decided to land.

The pressure wasn’t so much so that he couldn’t fly up but it did feel like he was carrying boulders which just drained his stamina even faster.

However he noticed the pressure lessened the closer to the mountain he was as if it was trying to stop him from flying.

He chose to climb the rest of the way. His body ran through the dense forest like an agile cat but with his size, the trees shook and broke wherever he passed.

He ran on the steep mountain like it was a flat even ground, not missing a single step. While his speed was slower than flying it was still very fast.

In less than two minutes he had covered over 30 kilometres which was halfway between the first and second layer of clouds.

The essence density on this layer had grown even higher than the lower clouds, it was still not enough to impede him but it made him very uncomfortable.

The biggest issue was the invisible pressure, it had grown much stronger than before. Each step felt heavy, he was gradually slowing down which was worrying.

He was only around 70 kilometres above the ground, if this was enough to slow him down no matter how little, then he couldn’t image how heavy the pressure will be at 1000 kilometres.

He continued running up the mountain until he reached the second layer of clouds. The temperature close to the cloud belt was below freezing point.

The air was so cold he was certain a normal human would not be able to breathe here, fortunately he was neither human nor normal so the cold wasn’t of any inconvenience to him.

However the essence was, he started burning even before he could enter the cloud belt, he spent a few days adapting before entering the cloud belt.

This time it took him an entire month to adapt to the essence energy here. Then he continued and repeated the process over and over again.

It took him an entire year to reach the 1000 kilometres mark. His biggest problem was adapting to the essence density.

While the pressure did increase it wasn’t as high as he had expected it to be, at all. He can still run up the mountain without much of an issue.

Not as leisurely as before but still fast enough to cover hundreds of kilometres within an hour.

However he knew things were going to get more difficult from now on. The essence density was becoming much higher, the blue mist was becoming denser.

To the point, Ved couldn’t see a few hundred kilometres infront of him because of it. However he didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop, he had already wasted an entire year.

Fortunately for some reason his body seemed to adapting faster to essence than before, even when the density was much higher.

Ved contemplated using his traits but chose against it. Firstly, he still had a long way ahead, using traits now would waste too much stamina.

Regenerating stamina here was slower than normal due to the constant pressure and this was only going to get worse the higher he climbed.

Secondly, being burnt by and adapting to essence was beneficial to him. It would solve one of his biggest problems.

Being vulnerable to essence infused attacks. Ved remembered Cat’s punch, even though it didn’t deliver any lasting damage since she was only a rank 3, it still hurt simply because it was was infused with essence.

This alone wasn’t enough to defeat him but against people who were already stronger than him, it made the fight even harder.

Even Naledi’s ice easily reached his bones because of that even though he was only in contact with her vessel briefly.

Gaining resistance to essence would remove or atleast reduce that problem. He climbed higher and higher, occassionally stopping to rest and adapt.

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At the same time

It’d been over a year since that fight and during that time Vermillion had scoured the ocean for the dragon’s corpse but to this day he hadn’t seen a shadow of it.

The only thing he found were few pieces of it scales and he managed to extract a few drops of it blood from the ocean.

Those few drops almost made him grow crazy, they made him want the dragon even more so you can imagine how furious he was when he found nothing.

He was sitting on his throne, his eyes dark with rage, a suffocating aura filled the entire hall.

Alya was standing before him, her eyes lowered. A hint of fear hidden beneath them. She didn’t dare show him she was scared of him as that seems to anger him even more.

Ever since that day, he had been in a bad mood. Alya had tried everything to find the dragon’s corpse but it was not there.

" Useless, useless, all of them, how hard can it be to find a GODDAMN CORPSE." his roar shook the hall.

Alya almost flinched but she stopped herself. In the past year, Vermillion had shown a side of himself she has never seen from her always smiling benevolent lord.

And she was terrified. Vermillion sighed. "I’m sorry for shouting, this isn’t your fault" he smiled at her but this did nothing to ease her heart.

" I will try harder to find it corpse my lord, but if I may be bold as to ask. Have you considered that it isn’t dead?"

Her question made him contemplate things. " You could be right, I did piece it heart but that beast had some powerful regeneration ability, maybe it can even heal from something like that."

He looked at her, " Call back all the search parties." She looked surprised, he had been too obsessed with that dragon, was he going to give up just because of a few words from her?

" Are you sure my lord?" He nodded. " If it’s still alive then it’s probably hiding in that minor world and I can’t reach it there, not with that monster inside."

Both of them shivered with fear when they thought of that humanoid monster. Spirit beasts could only achieve humanoid form through one way.

A transformation ability but that possibility was terrifying because it meant that beast had a complete lineage.

Spirit beasts or beasts in general cultivate slower than humans, which was fine since they also had longer lifespans.

Ofcourse, the waves changed that, however a spirit beast with a lineage means it can cultivate as fast as humans even on normal occasion which was terrifying.

Vermillion looked at Alya and grinned. " While we can’t do anything about them now, who knows what the future holds? Besides we won’t be alone.

Humanity would have to band together to eliminate such a threat would you not agree" he looked at her with a sinister smile that shook her soul.